Don't Blink
by JMenace
Summary: Don't look away. Not once, not even for a second. The world is coming apart at the seams and there's no time left to save it. No time for anything but cheating time, racing past it, in a flash of brilliant yellow light. Namikaze Minato has come. Blink and you'll miss him. (AU) (Slight Dune cross)
1. Rival of the Prophecy

"This year's class is quite something."

Jiraiya crossed his arms, his hair flowing in the midsummer breeze. He stood tense, primed for a battle that he'd already won long ago. "We meet again," he murmured.

"Over half the graduates outstripped the last ten year's students in overall scores, and the majority of those are heirs to major clans."

"I told you if I saw you again I'd crush you for good," Jiraiya said harshly, with the voice of a trained shinobi. A legend. A stone cold killer. "Yet here you are, in my life. Again."

Konoha's Ninja Academy had no answer for him.

"Jiraiya, are you listening to me?"

"No."

"They've got even more potential than your own class, you know."

"Doubt it," Jiraiya said, maybe a pinch more sour than was really necessary.

He'd been gone for so long, spent so many years abroad, it felt like Konoha had become a different place in his absence. While he'd been out winning a war and teaching a child with a legend's eyes, entire districts had risen, fallen, and risen again. His home had changed. He wanted to see just how much was different, who had made it through the conflict and what they'd done with their time. He wanted to experience Konoha all over again.

But instead he was here. At the Academy, scoping out graduates.

The instructors were all men, too. What a farce.

"It's true," his sensei insisted, sparing the chuunin at the gates a smile and nod on their way through. "All the core fields have their prodigies. The heir to the Uchiha clan is a dominating force in ninjutsu, while the heirs to the Hyuuga and Inuzuka clans are ferocious taijutsu specialists. I don't imagine you'd care, but the heir to the Uchiha has a cousin, and she's shown a staggering potential for genjutsu."

"You're right," Jiraiya agreed. "I don't care."

Sarutobi spared him a sly glance. "There's even an up and coming fuuinjutsu specialist."

Jiraiya paused in glaring at the various notices and niceties that decorated the Academy's entrance hall, turning his full attention to his sensei for the first time since he'd gone off to war. That _was_ interesting.

"She's a refuge from Uzushiogakure-"

"An Uzumaki," Jiraiya sighed. And there the interest went.

"Just because their style of sealing is different doesn't mean you couldn't teach her anything," Sarutobi said with some annoyance. "Are you my student or not?"

Jiraiya grunted noncommittally, trudging after his sensei.

He'd already been through this song and dance- just finished it up, in fact, and was looking for some hard earned rest and relaxation in and around Konoha's hot springs for his efforts. He'd gone all the way with those kids - Jiraiya winced. Poor choice of words. - and he wasn't too modest to say he'd done a damn good job with them. Future casualties of war they had been, but now they had the skills to fight for their dreams. With Nagato leading the way, they might even have the strength to see them realized.

Jiraiya wanted to believe in them. But he wondered if he'd done enough. He wondered if he ever could have, considering the man they were setting out to kill.

"Orochimaru already has a student, you know."

Tch. Orochimaru would have killed Jiraiya's students if he hadn't stepped in.

At any rate, it wasn't that he didn't like kids. For all the doom and gloom, he'd enjoyed his time with Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan more than he could really put into words. Seeing them grow and helping them take hold of their own destinies was an incredible feeling, a high like no other. Nagato especially had been a joy to teach, and not just because of those eyes- though they certainly hadn't hurt.

And there it was. Nagato had been the perfect student. He'd been so perfect that Jiraiya couldn't see anyone else surpassing him, certainly no Academy student. And what was the point if his next student wasn't better than the last? Why ruin a good thing-

Jiraiya twitched, whipping around to the nearest window.

Flash.

"What is _that?_ "

"That," Sarutobi said, coming to a stop beside him with an air of utter smugness. "Is the reason this year's graduates will surpass your own. That's the boy that spurred his class beyond even my wildest expectations."

The boy flashed by the window again, little more than a blur of wild blond hair and pale gray sweats. Jiraiya pressed his face to the glass, watching the kid run. That wasn't the speed of anewly minted genin. Hell, that wasn't the speed of a _chuunin_. The boy made another lap around Training Ground B in the time it took Jiraiya to mutter a curse, breath steady, eyes focused.

"That's Namikaze Minato."

Jiraiya cursed again. "I wanted a _vacation._ "

"No you didn't," Sarutobi said. "You expected a vacation. You wanted this."

He scowled against the glass. The kid made another two laps, leaping up into the trees to make things more interesting, in the time it took to swallow his petulant rebuttal. "Fine. Give me the run down."

"Minato has been at the top of his class since his enrollment in the Academy," Sarutobi said promptly, smugness redoubling. "His ninjutsu is always three steps ahead of his classmates, even Uchiha Fugaku, who has something of a one-sided rivalry going with him. As you can see, his speed is fearsome, and it compliments his taijutsu well. He's undefeated in the Academy spars. Though he doesn't tend towards casting genjutsu, his knowledge of the theory is sound and he has yet to be trapped in one for more than-"

"Yeah, yeah." Jiraiya waved a dismissive hand. He'd expected that much. "He's a genius, I get it. How is he that fast? What's the trick?"

It could be a bloodline limit, he supposed, but if it was he'd never heard of it. A variation of the shunshin, maybe? No, not for a kid that young. Keeping it up for this long would be murder on his reserves, not even taking into account how long he'd been doing it before Jiraiya walked by. Could be-

"You're looking at it."

... Hm? "Looking at what?"

"The trick," Sarutobi explained, gesturing beyond the glass, to the little brat zipping through the trees. "Hard work, and the finest chakra control I've seen since I picked out Tsunade for our team. That's it."

Well now. _That_ was interesting.

"... You said something about spurring his class on?" Jiraiya asked.

"Indeed. The dynamic in this particular class is unlike anything I've ever seen. Rather than branching out from an elite group of clan heirs, it all revolves around him. Rivalries, friendships, goals- for every one of the graduates, it all begins with Minato."

"Sounds familiar," Jiraiya muttered. "Why didn't you give him to Orochimaru if he's such hot shit?"

Sarutobi smirked. "Are you my student or not?"

Jiraiya watched the kid make another three laps. Flash, flash, flash. He chuckled.

"I guess I am."

It was a question of minutes, signing the necessary paperwork and circling around to Training Ground B- Sarutobi, coincidentally enough, had all the necessary forms ready to go with the kid's info already filled in. Jiraiya caught him as he was winding down, a thin sheen of sweat and a few ragged breaths the only indication that he'd been tearing through the training ground at full speed for who knows how long.

Wait. Was that his full speed?

Jiraiya was about to ask him just that when the hurried tap-tap-tap of sandals heralded another arrival from the other end of the clearing. Exchanging a look with his sensei, who was looking even more smug than before for some reason, he decided to hang back.

"Minato!"

A girl came dashing into the clearing, a long, silky black curtain of hair flying behind her. A dark lavender kunoichi's dress without any sleeves clung to her figure, lithe with the promise of curves to come. Her new headband hung around her neck all shiny and chrome, and wrapped around each of her wrists were a pair of black bands with uchiwa emblazoned upon them.

Oho.

"Minato, you're late! You're going to miss the team assignments!"

"Ah, sorry, sorry," Minato apologized, rubbing his neck. "Have they already started?"

The girl nodded, grabbing him by a baggy sleeve and leading him off towards a side entrance. "They've already assigned three of the teams, and we've probably missed the fourth already."

"Have you been assigned yet?" Minato asked.

Was that a smattering of red on her cheeks? "No, not yet."

Minato's eyes crinkled. "So there's still a chance."

" _Oho._ " Nagato had been the perfect student. His mythical eyes, his drive, and his thirst for peace had seen to that. But even his perfect student had been lacking where it counted. In his pants. "I'll take two of him."

A shunshin, a handful of pale gray sweats, and a very startled Uchiha girl later, and Jiraiya was sitting with his new student in the forest that bordered the Academy. Minato, considering he was the one being kidnapped, took it much better than the girl.

"Hello sensei," he said politely.

"Who says I'm your sensei?" Jiraiya asked, shoving the jounin sensei paperwork he'd just signed into his haori.

"Hokage-sama told me yesterday."

God damn it, sensei.

"Did he tell you why I chose you as my student?"

Minato nodded. "I work hard."

God _damn_ it, sensei.

"That's right," Jiraiya said firmly. "Don't you forget it, either. Geniuses are a dime a dozen, and it doesn't take a prodigy to put a kunai between your eyes because you got complacent. You may think you're hot shit now, but make no mistake, if you don't put everything you have into being my student, you're going nowhere. Fast."

"But sensei," Minato said, tilting his head. "I _am_ hot shit."

Jiraiya glared at him. The little brat met it without a hint of fear, innocent as could be. Jiraiya glared harder.

Then he grinned.

"That's what I like to hear." He pulled a different slip of paper from his haori, a short little list, and slapped it on the ground in front of the kid.

"These are..." Minato said quietly, scanning the kanji with sharp eyes. Jiraiya nodded.

"You're hot shit, I'm hot shit, so it only makes sense your teammates would be hot shit too, eh?" He gestured grandly at the list of names, more than a little pleased with himself. Every student on there had graduated in the top percentile of their class, and together they covered every major spectrum of the shinobi arts.

Also, coincidentally enough, they'd all been assigned to genin cells already. Jiraiya could only imagine the fits their prospective sensei would throw when they heard that their aces had been taken from them, snatched right out from under their noses. Sarutobi would have his hands full dealing with them, that was for sure.

Poor sensei.

"You're letting me choose?" Minato asked slowly, looking up at him with a curious glint in his eyes.

Jiraiya leaned forward, resting one hand on his crossed legs and propping his chin up with the other. He raised an eyebrow. "You know them better than me, don't you?"

Minato picked the paper up, and ever so slowly, began to smile.

"I guess I do."


	2. Genin Days 1

"I want these two," I decided, pointing at Mikoto and Kushina's names on the paper. Jiraiya-sensei lit up like a great big festival lantern, and I braced myself a split second before he hammered me on the back.

"Oho _ho!_ " he crowed. "A man after my own heart!"

I endured the slaps with a resigned smile. I supposed this was my life now.

I hadn't picked either of them for the reasons Jiraiya-sensei was probably thinking. I hadn't even picked them for practical purposes, though they did cover two of my greatest weaknesses. In all honesty, I just wanted to spend more time with Mikoto. We already saw each other so rarely outside of the Academy, if she'd been assigned to a different team I might not have seen her again until we were chunin. And that just wasn't acceptable.

I'd chosen Kushina because if she found out I'd chosen someone other than her to be Mikoto's teammate, I'd never hear the end of it. That, and I didn't mind the idea of teasing her for another few months.

"Alright! It's settled." Jiraiya-sensei gave me one last firm slap on the back, then swept us both away in a picture perfect shunshin.

We appeared at the side entrance that I usually took back into the Academy after an impromptu run, and Jiraiya-sensei promptly shoved me through. I turned the force behind it into momentum for a brisk jog, making my way down to my classroom for what would likely be the last time. The thought was a heavy one, but not necessarily in a bad way. If anything, it felt good to be moving on. Especially with so many of my classmates following right behind me.

"Oi!" Jiraiya-sensei called after me. "I haven't told you what to do yet."

"I'll meet you at the gates with my teammates," I called back.

I turned a corner, leaving him to steam outside, and slowed to a stop in front of the door to my class. I wasn't out of breath, but I took a second to breathe anyway. This was going to be a little awkward.

The door slid open with a soft hiss of rattling paper and wood, but it was enough. I found myself the center of attention and rubbed my neck, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry, am I late?"

Fugaku and a few of my less ardent admirers scoffed, while a small group of jounin gathered up front looked me up and down with varying levels of disapproval. I didn't recognize any of them, which meant they probably weren't that important. I offered them a polite nod and then shoved them to the back of my awareness.

"What was it this time, Minato?" The instructor asked, not bothering to look up from his sifting through of stack of folders. Team assignments, I guessed.

"I was talking to my new sensei."

A little ripple of whispers swept through the class at that, some more incredulous than others. The instructor accepted my excuse with an absent nod, pulling a sheet of paper from the throng.

"Glad he found you. Now, these will be the genin serving under Ayabito in Team 5." He cleared his throat, gesturing to one of the jounin. The man, Ayabito, was large. Not as imposing as Jiraiya-sensei, but certainly big enough to tower above everyone else in the room. He wore his headband around his right bicep, and aside from a mesh shirt, wore nothing beneath his flak jacket. His arms and torso were riddled with stripes and patches of faded scar tissue. Trophies of war. Markers of experience.

Mistakes.

"Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Mikoto, and Uzumaki-"

Oh yes. This was going to be awkward.

"Sensei," I cut in, projecting as much apology as possible to him and the bulky jonin waiting for his team up front. "I was actually sent here to pick up my teammates."

The instructor's brow furrowed. "I was told you wouldn't be part of a complete cell." The curiosity in the room ratcheted up another few degrees, and I felt the burn of Fugaku's glare from across the room. I heard the warning, too. _Don't do it, Namikaze. Don't you dare._ Sitting beside him, Mikoto bit her lip. Not willing to so blatantly support me over her dear cousin, but, well. I got the picture.

"Everyone else is accounted for," the instructor continued, turning back to his folders and paperwork, heedless of the sudden tension in the room. "There must have been some misunderstanding, are you sure-"

"I picked them."

Dead silence. Hiashi quietly sighed, while Hizashi just shook his head.

"And who," the instructor said slowly, finally giving me his full attention. "Did you pick?"

* * *

"I can't believe you!"

It was awkward.

"Who do you think you are!? Just walking in and acting like you own the place!" Kushina ranted, throwing her arms to and fro in her efforts to illustrate just how awful I was. "What if I don't want to be on your team, huh? What if that's the last thing I want to be? And Mikoto! What about her? You know how much she likes Fugaku!"  
 _  
" _Kushina_ ," _Mikoto hissed. "He's just my cousin."

Kushina huffed, her blood red hair practically shivering with the force of her outrage. "He still would have been better than this nancy boy. Why did sensei even let you do that, anyway?"

Why did she always call me that?

"Well, I'mglad you picked us," Mikoto said, though it felt like it was more for Kushina's sake than mine. "I'm sure Kushina will be too, once we all have some time to adjust to each other. Isn't that right?" She prompted sweetly.

"Never."

Maybe I should have picked Hizashi.

I led my newly dubbed teammates back through the Academy one surly step at a time, doing my best to keep a pleasant conversation going with Mikoto. Kushina, for her part, kept a steady stream of complaints flowing until she ran dry and resorted to sulking.

We passed by a set of windows, and seeing her reflection glaring at mine fit to kill, I finally bit. "If it's really that horrible for you, I can tell Jiraiya-sensei that I changed my mind."

"Tch." She turned her head.

"She's just upset no one told her about this," Mikoto explained. She reached out, squeezing my arm reassuringly. "I was telling the truth, by the way. I really am glad you chose me." Kushina continued to sulk, ignoring both of us with feverish intensity.

"Who else would I choose?" I asked honestly.

I've made more than my fair share of rivals in my time at the Academy, but I've only ever had one friend.

Mikoto snatched her hand back, an odd, shifty look in her eyes. "A-ah, right."

"This is my life now," Kushina muttered, squinting up through the light as we stepped into the midday sun. "This is my life and there's nothing I can do about it."

"I told you-"  
 _  
" _Nothing I can do._ " _She crossed her arms, daring me to refute her. "All that's left is to meet the idiot who let you pick out your own teammates-"

"FROM THE EAST!"

Jiraiya-sensei appeared with the sun at his back, hurtling from the sky and kicking up dust as he landed. He spun, wooden geta clicking musically as he moved. He tossed his head, and his pony tail whipped around, almost seeming to- extend? I watched, stunned, as the man's own hair swallowed him whole.

"To the west!"

The air shivered and crackled with chakra, sheer vitality like I'd never felt before, and then something tore. Obscured as he was by his own hair, Jiraiya-sensei nonetheless disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and I felt... something. I couldn't explain why, but it felt like a hand, grasping fingers made up of his very life force, reaching into reality and __tearing_._ Time and space groaned and buckled beneath the weight of his chakra, and from their shambles emerged-

A toad.

Jiraiya-sensei threw his arms out, one bent at an odd angle to frame his face, the other sweeping straight out at us. His hair whipped itself back into its original pony tail, and then he was dancing, hopping and skipping across a toad the size of a food stall with the poise of a veteran gesha.

"The sun rises to meet him, and falls in his wake! Women ache for his touch, and children yearn for his glory! Demons and men quail before his might! Gods themselves bow beneath the weight of his wisdom! A man of the masses, a roaring flame amidst a forest of leaves, he is the shinobi that all five Kage aspire to be!"

He flicked a drop of blood from his finger, and his chakra tore through time and space again, dragging another toad into reality in a cloud of smoke. This one was much smaller, only about ten times the size of an actual toad, and promptly whipped out a ceremonial fan from its little haori, pointing it up to Jiraiya-sensei with aplomb.

"The great!"

Crack. Tear. Another toad, another fan.

"The powerful!"

Crack. Tear. Toad.  
 _  
" _Jiraiya!_ "_

All four toads croaked as one, the three small(er) amphibians waving their fans grandly. Then, with a sensation like broken glass being jammed back into an empty window pane, like the sky coming back together after falling, they disappeared back to whence they'd come. Nothing but chakra smoke and a bead of blood on Jiraiya-sensei's thumb to mark their existence.

He landed with one final click of his geta against the earth and crossed his arms.

And waited.

I glanced back. Both of my teammates were rooted to the spot. Mikoto's mouth was moving, the motion ever so slight, but she wasn't making any noise. Kushina just looked gobsmacked.

Jiraiya-sensei raised an expectant eyebrow.

I clapped.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, bowing. "Now that the introductions are out of the way, let's get on to the fun."

He turned and walked away.

"W-wha-" Mikoto stammered. "That's Jiraiya. That's __the__ Jiraiya-" I returned her reassuring squeeze from before, then grabbed Kushina and tugged both of them forward.

"Come on. You'll get used to him, I think."

Hopefully I will, too.

As soon as we caught back up to him he tore a piece of paper out of a notebook and shoved it in my face. I plucked it from his fingers, scanning its contents. Backpack, tent, sleeping bag, canteen...

"We're leaving the village?" I asked. Mikoto leaned in over my shoulder, frowning at the list of supplies.

"This much gear? Where are we going?" she asked.

"On an adventure," Jiraiya-sensei said cheerfully.

"Does that mean no D-rank missions?" Kushina asked, a hopeful glint shining through her dark mood. I found myself feeling the same way. I was looking forward to moving on from the Academy, but trading out classes for gardening and other busywork didn't feel like much of a step up.

"D-ranks," Jiraiya-sensei scoffed. "Those aren't real missions. They're punishment for cocky brats and no-talent slackers. Even if they were, and even if I cared enough to acknowledge them, we're not going on a mission. We're going on an __adventure_."_

"Why?" Mikoto asked. She gripped the edge of my sleeve, pursing her lips. A quirk to hide her trepidation. "For how long?"

"In reverse order," he said, spinning a finger, "However long it takes. And why?" He grinned. "To polish up some of that potential sensei was bragging about.

"You, Uchiha Mikoto," he said, leveling a finger at her. Her grip on my sleeve tightened. "Your grasp of genjutsu and all its convoluted theory is unparalleled. Your control over your illusions is only going to improve with time, especially if you manage to tap into that bloodline of yours.

"But!" he said, finger waggling. "That's not good enough if you're going to be my student. Do you know who I am, little Uchiha?"

"Yes, Jiraiya-sama," she said quickly.

"You just introduced yourself," I pointed out.

"Of course you know me," Jiraiya-sensei said, ignoring me. "So you should know what I mean when I say that if you're going to excel in this team, you're going to need more. Mastering genjutsu isn't enough. You need to go beyond that, deeper. Delve into the darkest, murkiest depths of illusion and intrigue. If you want to continue operating from the shadows, I will __make you_ _ a shadow. Understand?"

Mikoto's gaze flickered to me, unsure. I shrugged, and mouthed: __You can go back if you want.__

Her jaw set. "Yes, sir."

Jiraiya-sensei smirked. "Good girl. And you!" He whipped around, shoving his finger in Kushina's face. She blinked, still on the back foot after the flash and thunder of his entrance.

"Me?"

"You. Uzumaki Kushina. This generation's up and comer in the venerable field of fuuinjutsu," he said. Kushina's chest puffed up at his words, and she nodded firmly.

"That's me!"

"It's not enough!" Jiraiya-sensei thundered, and out went the wind from her sails. "I may not be an Uzumaki, but I have experience with their work. It's good, it has its uses, but it is not the full experience. Not even close. If you want to study seals under ___my___ tutelage, you're going to do it right. You're going to start at the very beginning, and learn what it truly means to seal. You're going to _ __learn_."__

Kushina scowled ferociously at the man, her face darkening to match her hair. He glared right back at her.

"Fine," she bit out.

"It better be." He turned to me. I readied myself for the hammer blow.

"You," he mused. "Namikaze Minato. You know, I'm not sure what to do with you."

Well. That was disappointing.

"You've got two big weaknesses, and the girls cover them both nicely. Leaving us with the rest of the conventional arts, all of which you excel at," Jiraiya-sensei continued, tapping his notebook thoughtfully against his arm. "I'll be honest. If you keep at it, which you will, you'll be just fine in the practical arts. Which means we need to get out there for you. We need to get abstract."

Jiraiya-sensei stopped in his tracks, clapping two massive hands on my shoulders and studying me with a funny little smile on his lips. A smile full of anticipation.

"I'm going to let you choose again," he decided. "Do you want me to teach you what it truly means to be a shinobi? Or-" He leaned in, eyes bright.

"Do you want me to make you a legend?"


	3. Genin Days 2

"You've got to feel this in your gut, grab it with both hands and tear it right out of you! You can't just plan this out one step at a time, throw together whatever sounds good. You have to live and breathe your entrance. It's an extension of your very being, the culmination of everything you've done, everything you are up until this very moment!"

I frowned, eying Jiraiya-sensei. He nodded to himself, arms crossed, sitting on the food stall toad that served as the platform for his dramatic entrances.

"... From the east?" I tried.

"But _why?_ " He leaned forward, the ends of his hair sticking up, shivering with the intensity of his focus. " _Why_ do you come from the east? For what purpose?"

A good question. "Why do you?"

"Because the sun rises from the east, and it rises for me!"

"You seem like someone who would rise from the south, sensei," I said wryly. He shot me a wink.

"Only for beautiful women, kiddo."

"Anyway, I don't think I rise from any one direction," I said, considering the cardinal directions of the world. North, south, east, west, and everything in between. None of them spoke to me the way the east apparently spoke to Jiraiya-sensei. Maybe I had to find my style in another place.

"From the bottom?"

" _But why?_ "

"Because I... started there?" I winced at the look Jiraiya-sensei gave me, from his toad on high.

"Everyone started from the bottom," he said, unimpressed. "If some lowlife bastard who beats his wife can make the same claims as you, don't even bother with a dramatic entrance. This is personal. It's grand. It's _you_." He slapped the top of his summon's head, prompting a deep, warbling croak. "This is me, Minato. What is you?"

This... this was more difficult than I thought it would be.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Then start from the beginning," Jiraiya-sensei suggested. "All the most important details of Namikaze Minato."

The beginning? Where did my life begin, exactly? Where did Namikaze Minato start?

"I'm... fast," I decided. "Faster than most genin. Maybe even faster than that." But not fast enough. Not nearly. "I have blond hair and blue eyes, I'm two centimeters above the average height for children my age, and my build will probably be 'slender' when I grow up." Then...

The words started pouring out, anecdotes and snippets of my life in a steady rush of breath. "My parents left me, I don't know why. Mikoto is my best friend, I'm not sure why Kushina hates me so much, and I wish I could have spent more time with my classmates without it always turning into some competition. My favorite color is red, my blood type is O negative, I once roof-hopped halfway across Konoha while asleep-"

"Stop, stop," Jiraiya-sensei said, waving the pencil that had suddenly appeared in his right hand at me. He scribbled a few things down on the notebook that had suddenly appeared in his left hand and then buried both in his flak jacket, sighing. "This isn't working. You just don't get it."

I... don't get it? But- I always get it.

I looked down at myself, puzzled. Five years of training to become a shinobi, and this is the first thing I have trouble with? Jiraiya-sensei had started our training on this _days_ ago. Did I really know so little about myself?

Did I really know so little about the nature of Namikaze Minato?

"I don't think I know who I am, sensei," I said slowly, quietly.

Jiraiya-sensei's chakra jammed the shards of space and time he'd shattered back into their empty frame, and his toad disappeared into smoke. He stepped out of the cloud and knelt in front of me.

"Well now," he said, smiling. " _That_ is a problem that's right up my alley."

The feminine half of Team 7 found us some hours later, Jiraiya-sensei perched on the highest, flimsiest branch of the tallest, flimsiest tree. I sat one branch below him, legs crossed, hands loosely clasped in my lap as I split my focus between anchoring myself to the tree and delving into the depths of my psyche. My eyes were tightly shut, brow furrowed, lips turned down into a focused frown. The ache in my limbs, a dull roar of discomfort from the lack of movement, had been shoved into the back of my mind.

Jiraiya-sensei, by contrast, was humming a jaunty little tune, his branch swaying back in forth in time with his hair as he bobbed his head. He seemed like he was enjoying himself more than I was, but his form was horrifically sloppy. He couldn't be getting anything out of it, could he?

Was he just keeping me company? Or... was there more to his method? That tune of his _did_ have an eerie, relaxing sort of quality to it.

The clamor of shifting branches and padding feet made the point moot, the arrival of my teammate pulling me from my meditation all at once.

"Minato."

I exhaled, peering down through the treetops. "Kushina?"

She was standing at the base of our tree, arms were crossed, and even from my place at the top I could see the annoyance written plain across her face. "Minato!" she called again.

The message was clear. _Get down here, Namikaze. **Now**._

"Kushina!?"

"Get down here, Namikaze! __Now!_ "_

Jiraiya-sensei slapped me lightly upside the head, his branch bending dangerously with the motion.

I took the gesture for what it was and left him humming atop the tree. Three drops later I landed beside Kushina in a crouch, looking up at her in askance. She huffed and flipped her head, slapping me with a faceful of blood red hair.

Soft.

"I don't know what you and sensei have been doing all day, but it's getting dark and I am not doing your job for you. Go catch us something to eat." That said, she turned and stalked back back towards camp, muttering something about flakes under her breath. It was probably offensive, but I found myself not caring all that much.

I rubbed my cheek. Was Mikoto's hair that soft?

* * *

"We should introduce ourselves."

I paused, a charred rabbit's leg raised halfway to my lips. Mikoto and I shared a look across the campfire.

"Are you feeling well, Kushina?" she asked gently. The Uzumaki on our team flushed, the color in her cheeks made faintly orange by the fire light thrown across them.

"W-what? Don't look at me like that!" She waved her own bit of rabbit in a wide arc, encompassing the three of us, our camp, and the forest beyond. "It's just, we're out in the middle of nowhere, and who knows how long it'll take to get wherever we're going? If we're stuck together like this, we should, you know..."

She trailed off, taking a vicious bite out of her meal and muttering, "Never mind."

I raised a hand. "I'm Minato."

Mikoto giggled, eyes crinkling as Kushina sputtered around her food. "It's a pleasure, Minato-san. Please, call me Mikoto."

"And you are?" I inquired of Kushina.

She threw her rabbit at me.

"I didn't mean it like _that_ ," she snapped. "I meant, like, getting to know each other. Likes, dislikes, hobbies, that sort of- Hey! That's mine!"

I finished chewing, swallowed. "You threw it at me."

"It's still _mine_ ," she hissed, crawling forward and snatching the rabbit haunch out of my hands.

"Besides, we already know each other," I said, shrugging and taking a bit out of my own haunch.

"Oh yeah? Then what's my favorite color?"

Erm. I glanced sidelong at Mikoto, but she was apparently too absorbed in her own food to clue me in. I sighed, finding myself drawn back to Kushina's hair as I pondered the question. I was tempted to say red, but something told me that would be too easy. Her kunoichi dress, a shade softer on the eyes than canary yellow, was another possibility, but...

Wait, what did this matter?

"Orange," I said. Because red hair and yellow dress. Also, because who cares.

"Wha- how did you know?"

Really?

"Because we're teammates," I said, rolling with it. "What, you don't know my favorite color?" I teased.

"It's yellow," she said confidently.

"Nope."

She blinked. "Blue."

"No."

"Green."

"Nah."

"Purple!"

"Uh uh."

"Red," Mikoto said, licking the rabbit grease from her fingers one at a time. "And mine is-"

"White," I finished. She smiled, pleased.

"And what about _mine?_ " Jiraiya-sensei asked, a disembodied voice that cut through the darkness and the buzz of the forest like my punches through Fugaku's guard. He came hurtling in from the east, landing beside me hard enough to bounce me up into the air a few centimeters, and rose up with a flourish. Mikoto and Kushina both jumped on their own. They were still getting used to him.

"Good evening, sensei." Mikoto bit her lip, glancing around the fire for food that wasn't there. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we have enough-"

"Never mind that," Jiraiya-sensei said, waving her off. "Uzumaki-chan brings up a good point."

"Who's Uzumaki-chan!?"

"Point being," he said smoothly, patting me on the head. "You might think you know your teammates, but how can you claim to know them if you don't yet know yourself?"

My eyes widened.

"What are you saying, sensei?" Mikoto asked.

"Minato here, in searching for a dramatic entrance all his own, has taken the first step towards enlightenment," Jiraiya-sensei explained, taking a seat beside me and swiping the rabbit from my hands. I frowned, staring into the fire. "He's realized that he knows far less about himself than he once thought, and must now retrace his life while continuing to move forward, until he truly understands what it means to be Namikaze Minato."

"Dramatic entrance," Kushina repeated, eyes narrowing. "You mean that stupid dance you did at the Academy?"

"Excuse yourself," Jiraiya-sensei said, waving my rabbit leg at her. "A man's dramatic entrance is his heart and soul made manifest. It is the culmination of all his greatest deeds, his darkest hours, and his brightest dreams for the future. A man who knows his entrance is a man who knows _himself_. A true sage in the art of style."

"That is _so dumb_."

"Minato," Mikoto said softly, inching around the fire and grasping my arm. "Sensei is a legend. He's been a shinobi longer than we've been alive. Just because you don't have as much to say as him doesn't mean you don't know yourself."

When she put it like that...

"It's silly, isn't it?" I said, rubbing my neck. She nodded, eyes warm.

"It's silly."

Yet, I still felt odd. Thinking about it, my dramatic entrance - or lack thereof - wasn't the issue here. More, it was something that Jiraiya-sensei's spiel just now had only reinforced.

Brightest dreams for the future. What were mine?

"In any case! I think a proper introduction suits tonight just fine," Jiraiya-sensei said. Kushina sat up straight, brightening at the acceptance. "I'll start us off.

"I am Jiraiya of the Legendary Three, elite jounin of Konoha, master of all arts worth mastering, and international heartbreaker extraordinaire," he began with aplomb. "There are few things in this world that I don't like, and even fewer that I like better than a beautiful woman on a warm summer night."

Kushina made gagging noises, which Jiraiya-sensei ignored with his usual ease "I dislike what must be disliked. Cruelty, treachery, and hardship." The light of the fire cracked and flickered, and for a moment the shadows made an entirely different man of my sensei. Someone just a bit dimmer. "I despise war, because it's all those things, and more."

I patted his shoulder. He scoffed, ruffling my hair. "I have all sorts of hobbies, which you three will be getting well acquainted with soon enough." He set a fist under his chin, a thoughtful glint in his eyes. "I have a dream, too. A dream that one day in my lifetime, this crazy, hurting world of ours will see true peace.

"What about you, Uzumaki-chan?"

Kushina scowled, not in annoyance, but in concentration. I got the feeling Jiraiya-sensei had taken his introduction more seriously than she'd expected.

"I'm Uzumaki Kushina," she finally said. "Genin of Konoha, refugee of Uzushiogakure. I like the sea, a bowl of good ramen on a hot day, and running against the wind. I dislike snow, pretty boys, and-" She fisted her hands in her lap. "Iwa," she whispered. "I hate Iwa.

"My hobbies are fuuinjutsu, swimming, and flower arrangement." She glared right at me, daring me to say anything about the feminine pastime. I raised my hands in surrender. "Hmph. My dream... My dream is to make my home proud some day. I don't know what I'll do, or how, but I'll do it." She nodded to herself. "I will."

I nudged Mikoto. I wasn't ready yet.

"My name is Uchiha Mikoto," she said, fidgeting a little with my sleeve. "My likes are my friends and family, cold tea, and the winter season. I _love_ the snow." Kushina stuck her tongue out. "My dislikes are hot days, bigots, and-" She hesitated, glancing at me. Hm? "Outdated traditions"

"Oho," Jiraiya-sensei said under his breath, shooting me a wink. What?

"My hobbies are conducting tea ceremonies and strategy games with my cousins. My dream is, well. It's a little cheesy," she said, sheepish. "My dream is to right the wrongs that haunt the Uchiha, and make us the clan Konoha deserves us to be."

And then it was my turn, three pairs of eyes on me. I rubbed my neck, digging deep. Jiraiya-sensei had told me I didn't understand, Mikoto had said I was just being silly, but now it was time for me to find out if I really knew me.

"My name is Namikaze Minato," I said, slowly. Carefully. "My likes are..."

 _Sparring, mountains, and breaking records._ _ _T._ here are no limits._

"My dislikes would probably be..."  
 **  
** _Judgement, the overzealous, and war. ** **  
****_  
"Hobbies?"  
 ** ** **  
****** _Running and reading._

"My dream." And here it was. The itch, the chill, the _lack_ of purpose. What did I want, more than anything? I thought long and hard, heedless of the attention. Heedless of the world. Just me, and the dancing flames.  
 **  
"** To become the fastest man in the world."

Jiraiya-sensei laughed. "Well said, all of you!"

He stood up, stifling a yawn, and shambled off towards his tent. "Now that we all know each other a bit better, I think it's time we turn in for a night of rest and careful contemplation."

Kushina rolled her eyes. "Careful contemplation my-"

"Wait, sensei!" Mikoto called, stopping him halfway through the tent's entrance.

"Hm?"

"Where, ah, are we going? Exactly?" she asked, grip tightening on my arm. "You haven't told us anything about our destination, and it's been three days."

Jiraiya looked back at her, puzzled. "I said we were going on an adventure, didn't I? That means we're going _everywhere_."

"Everywhere," Kushina echoed blankly. "As in, everywhere?"

"The very same," Jiraiya confirmed. "I've spent the last few years of my life literally in a cave, so I need to get back out in the world, refresh myself on things. We were still at war the last time I ventured outside of Konoha, you know. So while I reunite with old friends, you three get to tour the world like no genin have toured before, and maybe learn a thing or two along the way." He winked.

"That will take... a long time," Mikoto said, her fingers white around my arm. For the first time, I realized that she was the only member of our team that would really suffer from time away from home. Kushina and I had our favorite people - Mikoto - right here with us. We were both orphans, and Jiraiya clearly had no qualms with living abroad.

"Do we have a choice?" Kushina suddenly asked. I looked to her, startled, and saw my concern mirrored in her. She'd noticed, too.

"Of course!" Jiraiya said, grinning. "You can choose the destinations."

And with that he ducked into his tent, leaving the three of us around the fire. Speechless. We all exchanged helpless looks, any animosities gone for the moment as we considered the scale of what we'd graduated into. Kushina was the first person to break the silence, shuffling around the fire to join us in a rough triangle.

"So... where do we go first?"


	4. Genin Days 3

Fire Country's border was unlike anything I'd ever seen.

Konoha had its walls, and up until today they'd been the largest manmade structures that I could fathom. They towered above even the tallest of Fire Country's signature trees, nearly topping the unnatural forestry in Training Ground 44. Made of densely packed stone and artfully carved gates, of which four had been stationed at each cardinal point in the village, they were a testament to the strength of Konoha's founding clans. The first time I'd seen them, I'd forgotten to breathe.

But the border between Fire and Wind was something else entirely.

Fire country's wall loomed up to the heavens, taller than Konoha's by half, and twice as thick. It stretched from horizon to horizon and seemed to physically cut the forests of Fire off from the deserts of Wind, holding back all the richest of the former's flora from the latter's desolate plains. I couldn't see any gates, but something told me even if I had that they wouldn't have looked nearly as inviting as those in Konoha. The border wall's aura was entirely different from Konoha's. Not grand, but intimidating. Not warm, but cold. I could see shinobi patrolling it, top and bottom, and their grimness was clear to see in spite of the distance between us.

It burned itself into my mind the moment I saw it, but I couldn't say I was happier for the experience. "They don't look like they want people coming and going," I said, breaking the hushed silence that the wall had evoked.

"Not at all," Jiraiya-sensei agreed. "Crossing this border is a major offense without the proper permissions, and even then Fire doesn't recommend it. The road to any sort of civilization in Wind from its border is harsh, and odds are the locals won't be all that happy to see you when you get there."

"Oh," Kushina said quietly. She'd been the one to suggest Wind, eager to pay their signature beach coasts a visit. I'd gone along with it, not minding one way or another, and Mikoto had been so shaken up by the whole thing that she'd agreed on reflex. "Maybe we should go somewhere else?"

"Bah. You'll run into that no matter where you go. We didn't make many friends in the war, you know." Jiraiya-sensei patted her head. "It'll be fine. You three just follow my lead and you'll be charming foreign ladies in no time." Kushina swatted his hand aside.

"Sensei," Mikoto said, peering up at the shinobi atop the wall with a frown on her lips. "How are we going to be crossing the border, exactly? I can't see any gates. This... doesn't look like a crossing point."

Jiraiya-sensei nodded along. "Definitely not. The nearest checkpoint is a six hour sprint to the north. This particular zone has no traffic at all except for the poor saps on patrol duty, and there are only a fraction of the contingent you'd usually find. They call this part of the wall no man's land."

Kushina bit. "Why do they call it that?"

"Because the wall on Wind's side of the border is barren in this zone. They built it along with the rest of the wall and haven't staffed it since. Not even a skeleton force."

"That's crazy," Mikoto protested. "Why would they leave themselves open like that? That's begging for someone to come in uninvited."

"Doesn't make much sense, does it?" Jiraiya-sensei said cheerfully. "Good for us, though!"

Ah. So that's where this was going.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kushina asked. "We're not sneaking in, right? You got us the 'proper permissions', right?" Jiraiya-sensei grinned. What color Mikoto had drained from her face. "Right?"

"From the east!" Jiraiya-sensei cried, biting down on his thumb and letting the blood fly. The resulting tear heralded the smallest toad I'd seen him summon yet, sitting a hair above his shin. It warbled a happy greeting. "To the west, and all the sands beyond! Jiraiya of the Legendary Three always has the proper permissions. Any fair lady would be happy to give them- no, overjoyed! Whether it be Wind, Earth, Water, or Lightning, Konoha's most gallant shinobi is always welcome!"

He clamped a hand on the back of Kushina's neck. "As my students, you'll enjoy the same privileges. Behold! A shinobi's proper permissions." He snapped his finger, and the little toad at his feet opened its mouth obligingly. Then he adjusted his grip on Kushina's neck, grabbed a fistful of her pale yellow kunoichi dress, and tossed her headfirst into the toad's mouth.

Kushina shouted, twisting and curling in an attempt to avoid squishing the tiny amphibian-

The toad's mouth yawned open wider, impossibly wide, and I felt something twist inside of it. A phantom rush, like wind surging past me into the vacuum beyond its mouth. Not breaking time and space, exactly, but stretching them. Warping them beyond recognition.

Kushina went in shrieking and she didn't stop. The little toad swallowed her whole.

"Kushina!" Mikoto cried, horrified. She rushed forward, reaching out-

Jiraiya-sensei tripped her, and she went tumbling into the toad's mouth.

There was a beat of silence.

"Do I have to throw you in too?"

"No."

Another beat. The summoned creature warbled invitingly.

"Why don't you go first, sensei-"

"Get in the toad, Minato."

I got in the toad.

It was bigger on the inside, obviously. I went in feet-first, sliding down a long and fleshy slide for a good half a minute. As I went, the phantom sound of Kushina's shrieks grew louder and louder. They peaked at a level just below "ear-splitting" as I touched down on what I assumed was the toad's tongue, squinting through the darkness. The walls of its mouth glowed, but the light provided was slight and tinged a dark flesh color.

I dimly saw Kushina, screaming bloody murder and thrashing around a few feet away. I took a cautious step forward, wondering if I should try to snap her out of it or wait for her to scream herself back to her senses.

I bumped into a lump of shivering Uchiha, and Mikoto let out a little shriek of her own. I caught her arm before she could flinch away, speaking as reassuringly as I could.

"Hey, hey, it's alright," I said. Mikoto went stock still.

"... Minato?" she whispered.

"Yeah-" I grunted, staggering as she wrapped herself around my legs. "Look, we're fine, this is just-"

"Who's ready to invade a hostile country!?" Jiraiya-sensei crowed, slamming into the toad's tongue beside me. The inside of its mouth rocked, almost knocking me off my feet again and throwing Kushina a good three shrieking feet into the air. The summon warbled indignantly, the sound of it titanic and echoing. Mikoto buried her face between my legs.

Thanks, sensei.

* * *

The desert burned.

There was no other way to describe it. It had been a hot day on the fringes of Fire Country, where the trees and their shade thinned, but this was something else entirely. The sand flowed like shimmering golden lava, pouring into my sandals and sizzling on my feet. The sun beat down relentlessly, hammer blows of heat that struck me the moment I crawled out of Jiraiya-sensei's toad.

The air itself shimmered and warped in the heat, distorting the horizon near and far. I felt delirious. I felt like time and space were bleeding.

I could see the moon. It was midday.

"Sensei." The word was nearly lost in the searing wind, whipping it behind me along with the tail of my scarf. A gift from Jiraiya, along with the two Kushina and Mikoto were sporting. Wrapped around our faces, though they made it no easier to breathe.

"Yes?" Jiraiya-sensei asked, distracted. He scribbled something in his notebook.

Jiraiya-sensei wore no scarf. He hadn't taken a single draw from his canteen since we'd entered Wind Country some eternity ago. He wasn't even sweating. When I wondered about it hard enough, really focused, I could almost feel a pleasant shifting of chakra on the surface of his bare skin. It was too vague to say, though.

"How are you walking like that?"

It was another thing I'd noticed. Where Kushina, Mikoto and I slogged through the molten sands one painful step at a time, Jirayia-sensei paced atop the dunes like they were solid stone. I'd been trying to mimic him for hours, using every chakra trick I'd learned in the Academy, but nothing worked. My teammates had been trying as well, with as much success. The surface was too volatile to tread. So how?

"Hm?" He looked up from his notepad, studying the three of us. He didn't squint. Somehow, every grain of sand in the air just... missed him. "It's one of the more advanced chakra exercises, unless you're from Suna. You'd have to know tree walking, and it really wouldn't be easy unless you knew water walking too."

"We already know those," Kushina said, her voice thin and rasping, but no less indignant for it.

Jiraiya-sensei blinked. "Really?"

We all nodded.

"Then that makes this easy!" He grinned, shooting us a thumbs up. "Combine the two."

"... How?"

"Tree walk, but water walk too."

Kushina jerked to a stop, misty grey eyes utterly flat. "What."

"You know," he said, waving a hand. "Put 'em together."

"You just said that!" Kushina yelled, voice cracking halfway through 'said' and ending in a violent coughing fit.

"Okay, okay," he said soothingly. "Here, let's say you're the tree walking exercise. And we'll say Mikoto is water walking. Make sense?" Kushina nodded warily. "Right. So what you have to do is-"

Jiraiya-sensei nudged the two girls forward, sending them stumbling into each other. They immediately latched onto one another, staggering in search of footing.

He beamed. "Just like that!"

"You're the _worst!_ " Kushina yell-coughed, pulling back - careful not to knock Mikoto off balance again - and stalking clumsily towards our sensei. "We're not all super legends like you, 'ttebane! You need to _teach us_ things! We can't just figure everything out on our own-"

"Ah," I murmured, balancing carefully atop the dune.

"W-what?" It was difficult to tell with the scarf covering most of her face, but I imagined Kushina looked pretty surprised.

"There you go!" Jiraiya-sensei slapped me on the back, throwing me forward a step.

I grit my teeth, driving my chakra into the sand through the soles of my feet. I saturated a wide, thin sheet with it, clung to that sheet, and balanced it upon the dune. I wobbled once. The dune stilled.

"You see?" Jiraiya-sensei said, gesturing at me. "Minato's got it. All it took was a little quick thinking."

"How?" Mikoto asking, leaning down and peering at my feet. "Why... isn't the sand moving?"

It was something I'd noticed a few hours ago while watching Jiraiya-sensei walk. Whenever his feet touched the dune, a patch of sand under and around his sandals froze. The minute shifting that was always at work on the desert's surface would just stop, only to resume as soon as he lifted his foot. I hadn't made the connection until he brought up the two chakra exercises.

"The sand is too unstable to water walk," I explained, lifting my right foot and allowing the desert flow to resume in its wake. "Pumping a constant stream of chakra into a dune upsets the structure and you sink. You can't tree walk, either, because the patch of sand you stick to your feet will just sink with you."

"So you freeze the sand," Mikoto said quietly. "And keep it on top of the dune with water walking?"

"I... think so." It was difficult to put into words. It wasn't a one to one combination of the two exercises. It was something more fluid. A feeling.

"Why doesn't that collapse the dune?" Kushina asked, watching me place my foot back on the dune with intense focus.

"Because the sand he freezes is wider around than his feet are," Mikoto said with growing confidence. "It's distributing his weight!"

"Sure." Whatever worked.

"You'd be surprised how much you can do with a little mixing and matching," Jiraiya-sensei said cheerfully.

"So then," Kushina muttered, lifting a foot from the sand and placing it carefully on the surface. "Distribute your chakra..."

I felt a soft pulse of chakra, not unlike the sensation I was getting from Jiraiya-sensei's feet, dig into the sand beneath Kushina. She tensed, lifting herself up on one foot. I felt her chakra spike, freezing a section of the desert and then burrowing deeper, suspending her on the top layer. She wobbled dangerously, touching down lightly with her other foot-

And something _lurched_ beneath my feet.

The roots of my chakra had brushed something, something I couldn't quite picture for some curious reason, and it moved. For a moment I thought the sky was shaking in its frame, but no, that was just the desert. The dune beneath my feet roiled, shifting and collapsing inward as whatever had been holding it up moved out from underneath it. The grasping strands of my chakra stuck to the... the...

Half-formed impressions relayed from my chakra sprang to my mind. Enormous slithering things and throats full of hundreds upon hundreds of shifting teeth. Titanic. It was titanic, and it was awake, and it was _hungry_ -

Jiraiya-sensei's chakra shrunk, folding in upon itself countless times, layering until it screamed to the senses, and then it boomed. A monstrous croak rocked the dune out from under me, breaking my chakra's tenuous hold on the titan below and sending me sprawling. With my chakra's last phantom impression I felt it recoil, turn away, and flee.

The desert flowed on.

"-ou o-ay?!" Mikoto shouted. She sounded far away, or maybe she was too close. I felt odd. Like my ears were ringing, but for my chakra instead. Reeling away just like the titan.

"Guys! What happened!?" Guys? I shifted the sand aside, ignoring the burn of it getting into my clothes, and cast around for Kushina.

She was sprawled out a few feet away, half submerged in sand just like me. I could see the whites of her eyes. They matched her skin.

"Sensei," I rasped. He laughed, grabbing me by the back of my tracksuit with one hand and hauling up Kushina by her yellow dress with the other.

"Careful now. Gotta learn how to fit more than one thing at a time in those little prodigy heads of yours. It's a whole new world out here," he said, winking.

"I think I know why they don't send anyone to this side of the border," Kushina whispered.

The rest of the day passed in shaken silence. I waited a full hour before I tried sand walking again.

* * *

"Sensei, how are we going to do missions?"

It was Mikoto who finally asked.

Jiraiya-sensei raised an eyebrow, kicking back in his tent. We'd set them all up as night fell and the desert transitioned from a hot burn to a cold one, along with a modest fire fed by whatever plant life we could find amongst the dunes. It was still mercilessly cold, but it felt good to have.

"Do you need to do missions?" Jiraiya-sensei asked.

She didn't take a moment to think. "Yes."

"Why?" he asked, honestly curious.

"Missions help the village's economy," she said immediately. "A ninja's mission record reflects their skill. Their successes and failures determine their value."

Jiraiya-sensei nodded thoughtfully. "So?"

"We can't be good ninja if we don't do missions," Kushina said. He waved his hand in a so-so gesture. " _Fine._ No one will _believe_ we're good ninja if we don't do missions."

"Possible," he agreed. "But why does it matter?"

"Sensei, please," Mikoto said softly. "I can't accomplish my dream if no one respects me."

"Ah," he mused. "Well, that's different."

He pulled his notepad from a pocket in his flack jacket, flipping through it and muttering faintly to himself. We all leaned forward one inch at a time, and jumped back when he snapped it shut. He nodded once, and smiled winningly.

"We'll do missions, then!"

I blinked. Mikoto and Kushina shared a look.

"So... we're not going on an adventure?" Kushina ventured.

"The opposite." He leaned forward himself, speaking in hushed, secretive tones. "You see, Uzumaki-chan, the great Jiraiya is _always_ on an adventure."

"Even on missions?" I asked.

" _Especially_ on missions!" He threw his arms out, gesticulating with feeling. "You kids have been operating on the false assumption that being a ninja and living a life are two separate things. You think becoming a great ninja is all about clocking in and clocking out until the Hokage decides you've done enough to qualify for respect.

"And you know what, it isn't your fault that you think that way. That's what the Academy taught you, that's what the people you know have said, and from your perspective that's what the greats did. I won't lie and tell you I didn't have to put the hours in, because I did, _but!_ " He jabbed a finger at us, eyes alight. "I didn't put them in because it was my job, or because I needed them to achieve some greater goal.

"I did it because I love being a shinobi. And that's the difference, here. Some people never make it past genin, let alone chunin, because they don't care enough. Because at the end of the day you can't just plug in so many hours of training and get so much skill back. You have to feel this stuff." His gaze flickered to me, and he grinned.

"A great ninja is a passionate ninja. And you know what a mission is to a passionate ninja?"

"An adventure," I finished.

"Exactly right." He clapped me on the shoulder, beaming at all three of us. "So! If you three want to be respected ninja, legends even, start with what makes your blood boil. Do what feels right and stop worrying about what other people think of your abilities, and you'll be happy. One way or another."

"Right!" Kushina shouted, jumping to her feet. "All about passion, 'ttebane! I'll show you and everyone else that Uzumaki fuuinjutsu is just as good as everyone else's!" That said, she turned tail and sprinted off to her own tent and the supplies therein.

"Wait, that's not-!" Jiraiya-sensei stopped himself, shaking his head ruefully. "Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"What feels right," Mikoto murmured, pensive. Her lips twisted, caught between a smile and a frown. She shook her head. "I guess there's no denying it." She decided on a smile, bowing to Jiraiya-sensei and dashing off to her own backpack and supplies.

A beat. Jiraiya-sensei raised an eyebrow. "What about you, kiddo?"

I shrugged. "I want to go fast."

He shoved me over. I laughed, using the sand walk to roll overtop the grains and come to my feet.

"Go run laps then, brat," he said, grinning. "Or see if you can find passion somewhere a little more worthwhile, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows, tilting his head towards my teammates. I rolled my eyes.

Passions and adventures. Where did I start?


	5. G e ṉ i

I wandered.

The desert was viciously cold, myriad daggers of breeze slipping through the fabric of my sweats like my practice kunai through Fugaku's guard. My scarf was icy against my mouth and nose, but I didn't dare take it off for fear of the wind. My hair felt stiff and brittle against my forehead, soaked with sweat by Wind Country's merciless sun and then frozen by its moon. It was almost unbearable, even as I ran, even as my heart pounded scalding blood through my veins.

It would have been easier to stay at camp. We had tents to conserve heat and sleeping bags to seal it in, and- well. My team. Alone in this desert, I could almost believe I was the only one left in the world. Myself, the dunes, and the moon. The chill of the place went deeper than flesh.

The alternatives hadn't been any better, unfortunately. Staying in camp, inserting myself into my teammates' passions and drawing their attention away from what was really important to them? 'Ah, Kushina, I know I don't actually know anything about your clan's culture, but could you teach me their most precious sealing techniques?' Who would _do_ something like that? 'Sensei, good evening. Could you teach me how to summon toads? I know I haven't actually done anything to earn your respect yet, let alone your trust, but I'd _really_ like to know.' My cheeks burned just thinking about it. 'Mikoto...'

No. I wouldn't intrude on Mikoto's inspiration.

I could have been more tactful, sure. I could have edged around the point, dressed it up with offers of assistance or simple curiosity, tried to lead them towards teaching me their hard won skills of their own volition. But that wouldn't change what I was doing, and I had a feeling that Jiraiya would spot my intentions before they'd finished forming in my head anyway. Even Kushina would probably see through the ruse. She had this eerie sort of bead on me when it came to these things. As for Mikoto...

Well, I was wandering.

I'd decided to work on my speed after all. First by solidifying my grasp on sand walking, and then by following Jiraiya-sensei's advice. That had started with a cautious walk away from camp, pulling the roots of my chakra up about me as if they were the hem of a dress and the desert was a flood. Then, when an hour had passed with no sign of another titan beneath the sands, I'd relaxed my control and simultaneously focused it. That's when I'd really started working on perfecting my technique.

There was a hidden depth to this exercise that I was only just starting to breach, something I hadn't noticed until the titan brushed my chakra's roots. The shock of it, the pressure of the massive creature asserting its presence in my mind's eye, impressions that could only have one source- my own chakra. The roots of this deceptively simple technique had done what naught but the most advanced reconnaissance jutsu could do. It had opened my shinobi sense. My chakra's eye.

The sand walk was a _sensor technique_.

There were countless applications of chakra in this world, infinite classifications and sub-classifications and sub-sub-elemental-shape-nature classifications for techniques that involved the energy of humanity's body and mind. They all had their uses, their times and their places, but for a shinobi there was only one classification that was worth its weight in gold no matter the situation or the cost. A shinobi that knew their opponent trumped a shinobi that didn't ten times out of ten. A sensor _always_ knew their opponent.

Kushina had gotten so upset that Jiraiya-sensei wouldn't just tell us how to walk the sands, accused him of wasting our time and not doing his job, and I'd agreed with her. To an extent, at least. I'd viewed it as a challenge, from sensei to student, to figure it out on our own with only the barest guidance. I'd thought it an invitation to do it ourselves, because one day we wouldn't have a sensei to show us the ropes. Perhaps a little cruel, considering we were in the desert and needed that knowledge _now_ , but ultimately a lesson we needed to learn. If it freed him up from actually teaching us in the process, then that was just a happy coincidence, wasn't it?

I'd been right, too. But that hadn't been the only reason. It hadn't even been _the_ reason. The real reason had been these roots, this awareness. Parroting Jiraiya-sensei step for step and learning how to walk in his shadow would have accelerated the process, but it would have obscured the true value of the exercise. My chakra's eye would have been clouded had I not felt the dunes for myself. Useless.

So many lessons wrapped up in one neat sentence. Jiraiya-sensei was at once nothing and everything like he seemed. All his bravado, all his eccentricities- fronts to intimidate enemies and put allies at ease. But at the same time, not untrue. So many lessons.

"You'd be surprised how much you can do with a little mixing and matching," I murmured, drawing the folds of my tracksuit tighter around myself.

It took me a second to realize I wasn't shivering from the cold anymore. I was _excited_. All these years I've been so wrapped up in my own hype, my own prodigal skill, that I never thought to do anything with the Academy's teachings outside of mastering them. I looked to my peers, saw they were behind me, and was content with my own pitiful understanding of- of-

Everything.

Jiraiya-sensei had shattered that complacency in a single day. He'd showed us the subtlest applications of chakra, the slightest shifts and contortions to keep dust out of his eyes and moisture in his throat, and when we'd asked for the solution to one petty problem he'd given us it all. It was so obvious now that I knew, because of course all it took was a mixing and mashing of chakra. That's all any shinobi art was, when you broke it down to its basest level. Chakra taking shape. Now that I knew, now that I understood, everything was different. From our first meeting to this arctic night, everything was _more_. If you'd asked me before today how long I'd known my sensei I'd have said not long. If you'd asked me how much he'd taught me I'd have said not much. But now?

He'd told us so much with the briefest sentence. Just one sentence, less than ten seconds of breath. He's been teaching us for _days_.

How much had I missed? How much had I passed off as the simple eccentricities of a man that could afford to have them? It was staggering to think about, and I'd been thinking about it for a while.

So I wandered. I crept, walked, ran. I broke the desert in like it was a new pair of sandals, not so much learning as remembering. I knew I would walk the dunes, just like I knew I'd be the fastest man who ever lived.

To be faster than light itself. It wasn't a dream, insomuch as Kushina's desire to make her village proud was a dream. It wasn't like Mikoto's wish to right her clan's wrongs. It most certainly wasn't Jiraiya-sensei's yearning for a world without war. To be fast and to walk the dunes. I didn't desire these things. I didn't wish for them. I certainly didn't _yearn_ for them.

I've dreamed of the future, but never for it.

Dust surged into the air behind me as I broke into a dead sprint, taking the sensor exercise a step further and propelling myself forward more swiftly with every step. I swept across the desert in a blur, my only companion the shadow matching me step for step. I ran without abandon, ran until the the dry, faintly sweet smells of the desert faded into sap and the thick forest smells of Konoha. I closed my eyes, watching my footing with my shinobi's sense, and drifted away from the desert. My pace redoubled, and then redoubled again.

I waited until I'd found my proper rhythm and squeezed every ounce of speed from myself, and then I disappeared into the _shunshin_.

The body flicker technique was a mystery that had plagued me since I was old enough to augment my muscles with chakra. A D-rank ninjutsu, low on chakra cost and not particularly complex. Any chunin worth their salt could perform the advanced speed technique in a pinch, and a jounin being incapable of it was unheard of. It was the logical next step once the basic chakra exercises had been mastered.

Yet there wasn't a single scroll to be found on it. I would know. I'd scoured the Academy's library top to bottom, as useless as it was - as any shinobi institution in the business of giving away free techniques would be - and come up empty every time. I'd asked my instructors after class, asked my classmates' parents when they came to escort their children home, even queried shinobi on the street. The most I'd gotten from any of them was that there was no set way to learn it. It was one of those nebulous techniques that didn't require any handseals, and as a result there was no general way to teach it. To my frustration, all anyone could ever tell me was that I'd have a feeling for it when the time came.

As it turns out, I've had the pieces I needed to put together to get that feeling for years. I just needed the initiative to put them together.

The chakra I'd infused my muscles with, strengthening them to furthest edge of my limits, shrunk in upon itself. In the blink of an eye my chakra folded in upon itself and burst, carrying me into the _kawarimi_ without any handseals to catalyze the transition.

The body replacement. An E-rank ninjutsu that used advanced chakra augmentation and sleight-of-hand to speed forward, grab an object, and race back to the starting position to plant that object as a dummy before escaping to safety. Masked with chakra smoke, it appeared to the untrained eye as if the user had switched instantaneously with their object of choice. True masters of the _kawarimi_ could even obscure the replacement object with a brief illusion, masking it as themselves to lure the enemy into a false sense of security upon 'killing' them.

That was all it was, though. Sleight-of-hand. Illusion. It was not truly instantaneous. It was just a _shunshin_ , dressed up with smoke and mirrors and handicapped by handseals. That last flaw, more than anything else, was why it was part of the Academy Three instead of the more adaptable _shunshin_. Because seals were easy. Anyone could shape their chakra to their fingers. Anyone could be _slow_.

Mixing and mashing, feeling my chakra as an extension of my own desires, that's all I needed to strip the body replacement of its fat. I felt it take hold in my muscles, no handseals necessary, and spur my own natural chakra augmentation along. The wind rose to a sudden howl and my shinobi's sense blurred as I ran faster than I'd ever run before.

I appeared on the other side of a high dune some hundred feet away, stumbled once, and collapsed in a pile of tingling limbs.

I opened my eyes a crack and realized my shinobi's sense wasn't the only one swimming. I raised a bleary hand to two moons, saw my fingers flicker and multiply, and promptly closed my eyes again.

"Yatta," I muttered, leaning back and waiting for the dizziness to pass.

When it did, and when I was steady enough on my feet to mount the sands, I tried again. The results were the same. I worked myself up to a sprint, triggered the _kawarimi_ , and merged it with my own chakra augmentation to form the _shunshin_. Then I collapsed. I didn't make it noticeably further, and didn't feel any steadier coming out of it, so I tried again. And again. And when I was too tired to stand, I drank from my canteen and watched the moon race at its own pace across the sky. Then I tried again.

I lost track of time, partly due to the rush of finally striking new ground, but mostly because my the constant dizzy spells were addling my senses. I also lost track of my distance from camp, which had been the one thing Jiraiya-sensei warned me about before letting me go. I was so focused on my task that I didn't even notice it when the roots of my chakra brushed against a titan beneath the sands.

I definitely noticed its response, though.

It surged upwards immediately, far closer to the surface than the one Jiraiya-sensei had scared off. I registered it rushing up the length of my chakra roots just in time, throwing myself forward into a dead sprint and triggering the _shunshin_ seconds before it broke through the dune beneath my feet. I came out of the body flicker with about as much grace as every other time, twirling once and falling into the dust. I looked up, squinting through the dizziness, and-

For a moment, I thought I was seeing double again.

It arched up into the sky, taller than Hokage Tower, taller than the Forest of Death's tallest tree, taller than any living thing had any right to be. Hundreds of meters long, with more buried under the dunes, and dozens wide. It blotted out the stars, hovering beside the moon in my vision. Its maw unfurled in three separate segments like the petals of a flower, and inside of it I saw the light of the moon reflected off a thousand wickedly curved teeth.

"Worm," I breathed.

The impossibly large creature swayed back and forth, undulating queerly in the moonlight. Its head turned this way and that, as if it was listening for something, and I saw with a start that it was wondering where I'd gone. I held myself very, very still.

The petals of its maw eventually closed, reverse-blooming into a sharp, armored point. It dipped, breaching the surface of the desert without submerging the entirety of its bulk, and it began to move. I felt the desert as a whole shift beneath me as the sandworm propelled itself forward, cutting through the dunes as a shark's fin. I watched it go with more than a little relief, sagging back into the dust and relishing my survival.

Then I realized the direction it was moving. Away from me, back along the path I'd been walking. Back to camp.

I'll never be able to explain what happened next, no matter how many years I have to think about it.

I came to my feet and whipped a kunai across the desert in one viciously fast motion. My right arm shrieked in sudden agony as muscles and sinew tore, forced to accommodate more chakra than ever before. My kunai soared over the length of the worm, and behind it trailed a length of ninja wire that whipped in and out of visibility as the moon caught its surface. I felt more than saw it catch hold of a chink in the ring segments of armor that coiled along the worm's body. The other end of the wire, which had found itself inexplicably looped into the ring of another kunai, went taut in my hand. That's when I did something incredibly stupid.

I froze a block of sand beneath my feet with chakra, drove my second kunai into it, and in the split second before the worm's momentum yanked it out I leapt up onto the wire and shunshined along its length.

I appeared on the sandworm's head, balanced on the ring of my kunai for a single poised second, and then I slipped off and slammed my head against the crest of its segmented armor. I slumped to my knees, the world tilting oddly on its axis as an obnoxious keening filled my ears. Did worms keen? Did worms make noise at all? What was I doing on top of one?

I bit down savagely on my bottom lip and felt the flesh of it give. The taste of my own blood more than the pain shocked me to my senses, and I scrabbled for purchase on its ringed surface. I felt the desert titan shift and roll as I did, spinning the world around me and doing nothing good for my dizziness. Eyes narrowing, I tensed and forced chakra into my legs until they screamed, leaping to the very top of the worm's head.

I landed on the final ring segment in a crouch, where its head met its mouth, and threw my entire body forward in the most vicious shuriken throw I've ever attempted. A trio of shuriken tore through the air in an impossibly sharp curve, ninja wire trailing behind each one. They curved around the worm's maw just as it began to bloom, wires wedging themselves in the gaps between each petal of its mouth. I tensed, every muscle in my body going taut as I watched the trio of shuriken whistle through the air, arcing towards me with deadly intent.

I waited until the very last moment, until they were within arm's reach, and then I whipped a senbon from my weapons pouch and jerked it up into their path, through all three center rings. Then I pulled three more senbon from my pouch and slid them into the rings alongside the first, forming a bar of shinobi-grade steel as thick around as my thumb.

The harness jerked once as the worm tried to bite down on the ninja wire only to force it into the sensitive flesh between the segments of its mouth. I exhaled, marshaling every ounce of nerve in my fragile human frame.

"From the east." I _yanked_ with all my might. "To the west!" I felt one of the three wires snap, but the other two held strong, digging deeper into the sandworm's unarmored flesh. Then, somehow, impossibly, the worm moved its head west to match my pull.

A wild sort of emotion came over me then, something I'd never felt before that day. It fell over me like a blanket, sweeping the after-effects of the _shunshin_ aside and sharpening my senses to a razor edge. It burrowed into me, down to the veins, and my pulse pounded in response. My lips parted from blood-stained teeth, and words came to me all at once, bubbling up from my core. Sharp and loud, begging to be heard.

"I am Namikaze Minato," I told it, my voice growing in volume and intensity. Never mind its lack of ear drums. Never mind its probable lack of sentience. I had something to say, and by the Shinigami, it was going to _hear me_. "I am Namikaze Minato, student of the gallant Jiraiya, shinobi of Konoha. I'm the fastest man who will ever live, a legend in the making. But more than all that, I am a member of Team 7." The emotion shifted inside of me, and my grin shifted with it.

"And you will _not_ take that from me, _worm!_ " I draw back on the wire, shouting my effort to the heavens, and the worm threw its head to the west. Shifting, sliding, moving away from camp. Elation and lingering fury warred for dominance in that wild cloud of emotion, and I found myself not caring which won.

That's when the croak hit.

It slammed into me from the side, a wall of thunderous sound and chakra that knocked me clear off my feet. I bounced off the worm's armored hide, the wild emotion rushing out of me along with my senses. I clutched the senbon reins with white knuckles, felt the desert titan jerk and arch up beneath me. I had a second's view of the desert from the worm's vantage up above the stars, a sea of shifting dust and glittering dunes, before it dove headfirst into its depths.

I lurched to my feet as it fell, knowing I had to get away _now_. I sprinted back along the worm, knowing I was too slow even as I blurred past dozens of armored ring segments. Its speared through the surface like a an explosive tag, and I chanced a glance back to see the desert collapse around the the worm, falling inward for dozens of meters around. A whirlpool of dunes. I knew then, instinctively, that if I couldn't clear that sink in its entirety, I wouldn't be escaping.

So I closed my eyes and threw myself into the _shunshin_.

I came out of it halfway down the length of the worm, staggering desperately for balance. I bit clean through my bottom lip, teeth clicking sharply together, but it wasn't enough to clear my mind this time. The moon fell out of my sight, tilting up and away from me along with the rest of the sky. I experienced a single, horrific moment of free fall, and then I lost my footing and the worm both. I fell. I fell, and as the worm disappeared into the whirlpool, I disappeared with it.

A flash of desperate light caught my attention as I plummeted into the dune, reaching out to me, screaming for me to grab on. I did, felt ninja wire bite into the palm of my hand, and held on for dear life. The wire jerked and I followed it, slamming back down onto the worm's head. Then the whirlpool swallowed us up, waves of sand washing over me, pressing me to the sandworm with crushing force. I clenched my eyes shut, held my breath, and waited for it all to end.

I felt the moment the last segment of it disappeared into the sands, felt it as vividly as I felt the excruciating pressure of the sand on my body and the lack of air on my lungs. I scrabbled for consciousness, lost my grip on it, and began to fall away from that, too. I allowed myself one last thought before the darkness claimed me.

 _Damn it, sensei._

* * *

 __We broke through.

My eyes flew open, and I latched onto the tail of my fleeting consciousness and jerked back for all I was worth. A deep, shuddering gasp filled my lungs with air, and yet more of the breeze kissed my hair as we rose, worm and shinobi, yet higher into the air.

Except that wasn't right. We'd been burrowing straight down. I'd _felt_ us go down. How could we be back to the surface?

I scrambled with legs made weak by my near-death, searching for footing and finding none. Finally I just stuck my feet to the creature with chakra, pulling myself up the crest of its head one unsteady step at a time. I kept a firm hold on the ninja wire reins, half to keep me stable, half because the wire had been embedded in my palm sometime during the dive. The worm stopped rising when all but a quarter of its mass had been lifted up out of the desert, and then it began to sway. The petals of its mouth bloomed above me in three massive segments, and framed between them I saw the moon.

"Oh," I whispered. "Oh no."

There came a sudden wriggling in my backup weapons pouch, a distressed little warble signalling the presence of a creature that should not have been in the pouch where I kept my killing tools. I flipped the pouch open absently, staring up through the gaps in the sandworm's mouth in a trance. I felt something cold and trembling work its way up my arm, onto my shoulder, and then atop my head. The little toad croaked, a horribly worried sound.

Above us hung a different moon, sporting a hand of craters in place of a rabbit. Below us, reaching from horizon to horizon, a different desert. A different world.

Just like that, huh? I began to laugh, a soft, hopeless sound. My little passenger croaked despairingly.

"Well, there it is," I told it. "The end of my legend."


End file.
